[syn.tax] n [F or LL; F syntaxe, fr. LL syntaxis, fr. Gk, fr. syntassein to arrange together, fr. syn- + tassein to arrange] (1574) 1 a: the way in which linguistic elements (as words) are put together to form constituents (as phrases or clauses) b: the part of grammar dealing with this
2: a connected or orderly system: harmonious arrangement of parts or elements
3: syntactics esp. as dealing with the formal properties of languages or calculi